


bullet hell hotel

by mattholomuse



Series: McGenji Week 2k17 [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Post-Recall, bad healing practices but theyll find a better doc in the morn i promise, before they may or may not join up again (thanks blizz), brief mention of raccoon antics. i guess, hey do raccoons have thumbs, some mention of blood, the end is sappier i think than it really has a right to be, this one also doesnt have a particular timeline tho im leaning toward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 15:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12844308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattholomuse/pseuds/mattholomuse
Summary: Jesse takes a bullet and it's on Genji (hardly a medic) to patch him up.





	bullet hell hotel

**Author's Note:**

> mcgenji week day 2 - safety/survival

It happened in slow motion. The gunman pulled the trigger back, an earth-shattering _bang!_ erupting from the barrel behind an intricately carved little bullet. Genji saw each individual strait on the bullet, saw it twist and rip through the air. He saw the whites of Jesse’s dark, dark eyes, made ever darker by the fear that ignited within them. 

Jesse ducked, but bullets were not designed to grant their targets time to dodge them. It ate through Jesse’s side faster than the shark painted onto its master’s gun, leaving in its wake a spray of blood.

A strangled choke collided with the back of Jesse’s grit teeth, and time sped up.

The gunman fired another bullet, this one shorn in half by the razor-sharp edge of Genji’s blade. Its two halves spiraled in opposite directions, one biting into the stone of a nearby building and the other clattering lifelessly to the ground.

“You are out of bullets now,” said Genji softly. “And you are out of options.”

Genji brought his katana down upon the gunman, its hilt meeting his temple with a deafening crack, and the gunman fell to the pavement, unconscious. 

They had been brought to this location from their dinner date at a nearby diner. It was not a brilliant place to rob, but it was mostly out of the way, and its owner was not a man with connections. 

At the sound of a gunshot, Genji had thrown his cash onto his half-finished meal and rushed out of the diner, Jesse in tow. A minute later, they found themselves in an uneven battle; three criminals versus two vigilantes nearing their expiration date. Genji had pitied the gunmen.

He did no longer. 

Jesse had not moved from his hand and knees. Peacekeeper lay a good foot from him, not quite out of reach but not quite within it, either - and it would do no good, in any case. Two of the criminals had been disarmed and shooed away, and the third lay behind Genji.

“What hurts?” asked Genji, dropping into a crouch. Jesse laughed a low, rumbling laugh that ended in a painful groan.

“Don’t think any organs were nicked,” he said. “Got me good, though. Hell, I don’t think I’ll be sleepin’ on that side for months, and too bad, too. That was my favorite side.”

Once plaid, Jesse’s shirt had begun to look like the start of cheap tie-dye. He knotted his fingers in the torn fabric, desperately willing his skin to knit itself closed, while blood soaked through his fingers in a slow, creeping trickle.

“Come on,” Genji said, gently easing Jesse to his feet. “I’ll patch you up. I’m no Ziegler, but I know how to use a bandaid.”

Jesse laughed, coughed, then silenced.

“Eloquent.” Genji could not bring himself to his usual mischievous grin. He could not even summon it in his words, not the barest ghost of it, but this did not seem to bother Jesse, who laughed in the face of his pain and squeezed Genji’s shoulders in half a bloody hug. 

Two halves of a broken whole, they hobbled their way to a nearby hotel - where they had not made reservations - and stopped before the clerk. Genji flipped a card the clerk’s way, caught the key midair, and they continued to an elevator. 

Jesse braced the flat of his prosthetic hand against the wall, grimacing against the pain it shot through his body. His hand twitched, clicked, tapped a beat, and all Genji could do to comfort him was nuzzle his shoulder.

“I always hated elevator music,” Jesse grumbled. “Made me want to bleed out. Seems I might be gettin’ my wish.”

“You won’t bleed out,” Genji responded through a choked laugh. “Like I said, I’m no Ziegler, but I know my way around a bandaid or two. You’ll be fine, babe.”

“Are you laughing at the concept of me bleeding out?” Jesse challenged. His tone was grave, deathly quiet, countered by a grin on his face more befitting of a prankster than a hero. Genji could almost picture Jesse TPing Jack Morrison’s quarters, giggling like a maniac at the sheer _genius_ of it all. 

And it would have been hilarious if Genji’s fingers weren’t rusted over with blood. The elevator came to a halt before Genji could form a valid excuse for his lack of response.  
He heaved Jesse down the hall, the soft, clicking whirr of boot spurs a faint background to heavy breathing. Genji heard a staticky laugh track from a room behind him, a heavy _clonk_ from one to his side. 

Their room was at the end of the hall, near a window overlooking a series of alleyways and short buildings. Cars buzzed by, people looked like ants. 

The door was a worn old thing painted in chips, topped by a crooked address and a cloudy peep hole. What lay inside the hotel was marginally better.

There was one creaky old bed, an old-fashioned TV and a bathroom with a little tub, all yellowed with age. It was no Hanamura - it was not even a Gibraltar - but it was something, and Genji had only asked for something.

Jesse had not asked for anything, years on the run had trained him to be ready for everything, prepared to sleep anywhere. According to his meandering stories, he’d once slept in a hollowed-out tree trunk and woke to a raccoon screeching in his face. He’d scrammed, only to discover that he’d left Peacekeeper.

 _And let me tell you,_ Jesse had said with a gentle laugh. _You don’t want your gun to fall into the hands of a wild creature with thumbs._

Whether these tales were jokes or fact was hard for Genji to pin sometimes, and the raccoon story eluded him to this day. Jesse did not spoil Genji in this regard, either - he would not spill even on his deathbed.

Genji popped the first-aid kit off the bathroom wall, fishing out of it the materials he thought he’d need, including a needle, a thread, and a roll of gauze. The needle was rusted. The thread was a half inch long, not even as long as Genji’s little finger, and it crumbled when he plucked it out of the container.

Steam hissed from the slits in Genji’s armor, fogging the mirror before him.

“Jesse,” he called. “Have you had your Tetanus shots?”

“Whatever you’re planning to do, sweet pea, _don’t,”_ Jesse called back.

“Just thought I’d ask.”

With only a roll of cloth and raw determination, Genji set to patching his boyfriend back up. Jesse was not the sort to brazenly flaunt his pain, but he was not exactly subtle in regards to it, either. He puffed his cheeks out, bristly whiskers shot out like porcupine quills; a deep wrinkle formed between his dark brows; and his eyes narrowed to slits, so Genji could only barely see the deep, earthy brown of Jesse’s irises.

“And…” Genji said, a low hum building in his synthetic throat. He looped two strips of gauze together, tied them off, and patted Jesse on the side with the tips of his fingers. “Done. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Jesse let out a breath. He spent six seconds letting that breath out, six whole seconds to deflate his cheeks and ice his nerves. It ended with a gentle puff, and Jesse turned his head, smiling weakly.

“Thank you, Genji,” he murmured. 

Genji lowered himself onto the bed to nuzzle Jesse’s shoulder. “You know it isn’t a problem. I’d heal you if you lost the bottom half of your torso.”

A honey-sweet laugh. Jesse pressed his lips to a ridge of steel arching over Genji’s skull; all he could feel was the slight bump of pressure, then a hand on his hip. In any other scenario he would have scooted closer. To risk Jesse’s health for a minute or two of warmth was too great a risk, no matter how badly Genji wanted to hold Jesse like he was the anchor to Genji’s drowning sailor.

Genji laughed this time.

Laughter, it seemed, was the glue that held them together. When one of them could not laugh, the other could, Genji could only imagine it would stay that way until the day one of them could speak no longer.

And because Genji laughed, Jesse did too, straight through his pain and on to daylight. They paused once, when Jesse had to breathe, and in that brief snapshot of silence, Genji turned onto his side, his belly touching Jesse’s flank, and smiled beneath his mask.

“Hey, Jess?”

“Genji?”

“I love you.”

Jesse raised a hand to stroke the curve that marked Genji’s brow. He breathed, and leaned, pressing their heads together. Jesse’s breath warmed Genji’s visor and fogged his eye slits.

“I love you too, Genji. But I don’t think I need to say that for you to know it.” Jesse smiled. The lines by his eyes deepened, and Genji knew he told the truth.

“You don’t need to say it,” Genji confirmed. “All you need to do is not get shot again.”

“Wh- hey!”


End file.
